What's a personal page?

Techdirt, Anil and Aaron at 601am are struggling with the issue as it relates to Google's new contextual ad offering for content sites.

Anil Dash: "Question for Google Legal: What defines whether a site is personal?"

Way back on May 9, 2003 I had asked a similar question: "Will Google make a distinction between commercial sites that use blogger for content management and those that use it to publish blogs?"

Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineWatch weighs in:

The program policies do not allow "personal pages" to take part. What's a personal page? This isn't defined. However, a traditional personal home page listing things like interests or family news certainly wouldn't be eligible. Similarly, some blogs may find themselves rejected, under this rule.

"In general, we're looking for at this stage web sites with more standardized content," Wojcicki said. "Blogs are an example of a gray area, and we will review them on a case-by-case basis to see if they fit our network."

This will be a difficult area for Google, because blogging tools aren't just used by those wishing to express personal views. Some use them simply because they are an easier way to publish a web site focused on a particular topic.

Danny goes on to identify examples of sites which utilize blogging tools to publish web sites focused on a particular topic rather than simply to express personal views.